Superflight

I really like Superflight.

It is an extremely simple game. You use WASD to control your little avatar as he glides among multicoloured, procedurally-generated worlds. There is nothing to hear but the occasional chirping of birds and the constant sound of wind as you flew between rock formations.

There is a point system, which is determined by how closely you are flying to the rocks. Flying beside a wall with your hand almost brushing against its surface, gliding between rock pillars, drifting just above a plateau, or darting through a hole on a rocky wall, they all contribute to your points, and you can chain up combos as well. If you fly too far away from the rock formations, flew straight down into the white mists beneath the rocks, or travel through a portal which look like a mass of purple cubes, you’ll be transported to a new world.

When you crash, the details of your last flight will be overlaid above the camera, which travels back along the path you took just before your death. When you restart the game, your shattered body disappears, and your new avatar once again soars through the air in the last world you are at.

In your travels, if you find a map you really like, you can save it. The next time you play, you can start from one of the maps you’ve saved. You can also type in a seed for the game to generate a map for you according to that seed.

What drew me into this game is definitely not the depth of its mechanics, engaging story or award-winning soundtrack. It’s the feeling of just drifting along like a fallen leaf in the wind that caught me. Superflight is an extremely simple game, but its charm and its unique gameplay grabbed me like nothing else.

The freedom to just soar through the air like an eagle, without a care in the world is soothing. The interface is simple, you can turn off the display for scoring so that the UI is nonexistent during gameplay, and all of that just reinforce the idea that flying is all there is. Nothing to worry about, nothing to fret over. Just spread your wings and fly. Explore the different worlds, pull some stunts if you want to, but there is no pressure to do anything except not crashing headfirst into the rocks.

After all the games I’ve played, having something so simple is extremely refreshing. Just me, my solitude, the endless worlds where I travel through, and the sound of air rushing past my ears. The mere action of flying is strangely addictive.

I have one very minor complaint though. In most games, pressing [ESCAPE] at the main menu means that you want to quit the game. So why in the world does [ESCAPE] in Superflight closes the main menu and chucks you straight into the game? Yeah, I guess this is probably one of the smallest and pettiest nitpick I could’ve ever said about a game. But for a game like this, it does what it sets out to do and it does that perfectly. The fact that this is the only thing that I can find fault about it says a lot about how much I like this game and how well it does what it wants to do.

As much as I like this game however, I have a feeling that it’s not going to be a universally enjoyable game. I mean, there isn’t a game in the world where literally everyone will enjoy it, but I have a feeling quite a few people will be driven away by the fact that there is so little actual content in this game and that it costs money (USD 2.99) for something that seems so devoid of substance. But to me, I’ll gladly pay that price for this game, and I did. It is charming, soothing, and is an extremely enjoyable experience.

I strongly recommend Superflight to anyone looking for a game to unwind and relax. You can check out its Steam store page here.